The events of Sep. 11, 2001 heightened our awareness of security in public places, airports, ports and the workplace.
Also the passage of the HIPPA federal law has imposed severe restrictions on the accessibility and availability of patient medical records in hospitals and medical facilities.
This has increased the need for better controls over the possession and movement of records, files, inventory etc. by authorized personnel and unauthorized personnel.
Objects of the present invention are therefore to:
a. remotely detect the presence of articles or objects each belonging to one of a plurality of defined classes.
b. remotely detect the location of articles or objects each belonging to one of a plurality of defined classes.
c. remotely detect the identity of articles or objects each belonging to one of a plurality of defined classes.
d. create and store an inventory of articles or objects each belonging to one of a plurality of defined classes.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a Remote Dynamic Ingress/Egress Inventory Security System and in particular to such a system including dual modality remote sensing means.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The relevant prior art discloses several patents showing single and dual modality remote sensing systems. Such prior patents include:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,189,393 entitled “Dual technology motion sensor” and issued to Hu on Feb. 23, 2003 discloses a dual technology sensor which uses both ultrasonic and infrared sensors. The electronic circuit of the invention requires detection by both sensors to activate the load. Thus, false triggering will not occur unless the false triggering device both emits heat and moves. To avoid having the motion sensor inadvertently turn off while the person is still present, only one of the infrared and ultrasonic sensors is required to be detecting to maintain the activated state.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,406,256 entitled “Remote sensor and motion alarm system” issued to Ledel et al on Apr. 11, 1995 discloses a motion detector having a motion sensitive switch, timing circuit, encoder and radio-transmitting circuit in a housing which may be affixed to a remotely-positioned article; and a decoding and receiving circuit housed in a second housing. The radio-receiving circuit receives the encoded transmitted signal and couples it to a decoding circuit; the decoding circuit is connected to a latch circuit which drives an alarm. The sensitivity of the alarm generation circuits are controlled by a timing circuit, and the alarm may be disabled in order to enable the operator to evaluate the nature of the incoming signals.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,532,824 entitled “Optical motion sensor” and issued to Harvey et al on Jul. 02, 1996 discloses an apparatus which determines the position of an object with respect to a reference coordinate system. Preferably, the apparatus includes a target attached to the object, the target moves within a defined region and has a surface with a first pattern thereon. A projection device projects a second pattern upon the surface. A sensing device provides an image signal indicative of the target surface including the first pattern and the second pattern. An analyzer receives the image signal and determines the position of the object based on the position of images of the first pattern and the second pattern.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,044,952 entitled “Multi-function optical sensor for a document acceptor” and issued to Haggerty et al on Apr. 04, 2000 discloses a document acceptor including a document transport path and a multi-function optical sensor disposed adjacent the document path. The multi-function sensor can be operated in one of two or more modes. Depending on the mode in which the sensor is operated, signals from the sensor can be used, for example, to indicate whether a document has reached a particular position, to determine whether the document includes a predetermined pattern, such as a bar-code pattern, or to determine whether an attempt is being made to pull the document out of the acceptor.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,225,905 entitled “Sensor for remote detection of objects” and issued to Tyren et al on May 01, 2001 discloses a sensor for remote detection of objects in a surveillance zone is preferably intended to be used in an article surveillance zone, which further has at least one transmitter means and at least one receiver means for transmitting and receiving, respectively, electromagnetic radio-frequency signals in the surveillance zone, and at least one modulating means for generating a modulation field in the surveillance zone. The sensor is arranged to transmit an electromagnetic reply signal at the reception of electromagnetic energy from the transmitter means, said reply signal being dependent on the modulation field and being receivable by the receiver means. A magnetic element is arranged in a sensor body, the magnetic properties of the element being controllable by a magnetic field acting as the modulation field, wherein the amplitude of the reply signal from the sensor is controllable through the magnetic modulation field.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,417,771 entitled “Sensor, a method and a system for remote detection of objects” and issued to Tyren on Jul. 09, 2002 discloses a method for remote detection of objects, each object is provided with a sensor comprising at least two magnetic elements arranged in a predetermined mutual relationship representing an identity of the sensor. Electromagnetic signals are generated for exciting the sensor elements to produce electromagnetic reply signals. An amplitude of the electromagnetic reply signal from each sensor element is modulated by a first magnetic field having a magnitude-variant and a magnitude-invariant component. A second magnetic field is generated with rotating field vector. A frequency shift is detected in a component of the reply signal, when a magnitude-invariant component of the second magnetic field balances the magnitude-invariant component of the first magnetic field, wherein the respective sensor element is momentarily exposed to a resulting magnetic field with essentially no magnitude-invariant component. An orientation of the respective sensor element is determined from the orientation of the magnitude-invariant component of the second magnetic field, when the frequency shift occurs.
Upon a review of the above prior patents, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that such patents do not disclose applicant's invention which includes dual modality sensing means to detect, locate, identify and inventory multiple classes of objects.